Time zones

Charl-Pierre Naude

Along a narrow and winding footpath
onto the peninsula two people approach
the lookout post of a bird colony.
That at least, is how I remember us.

Memory is fickle, a bastard thing.
But scientists now allege that
past, present and future
happen simultaneously:
a single disc that buckles through space,
the smallest moment, from rim to rim -
the same diameter as eternity.

Flat rocks were steaming in the sun
like hot plates of a stove.

Birds swept over our heads
lower each time leaving little gusts
from their wings to explode in our faces -
like a giant invisible cook
speaking a foreign language,
chasing children out of his domain
with large, white cloths.

We enter the sanctuary.
A hallowed quiet reigns.
We are completely alone.
The menacing, jabbering hordes outside now.
The tinted window juts out diagonally,
typical of church architecture of the seventies.
We take our places among the rows of pews.
On the wall behind us looms the Cross
on a blow-up photograph of Diaz Point.
There is no pulpit, the way it should be.
In imitation of a Frank Lloyd Wright.
In imitation of ourselves.

Outside is Golgotha, or the Second Coming.
Millions of wings flash, and alight.
Appear and disappear.
And I turn to look in her eyes.
She’s staring into the distance.
Millions of shadows flickering
minutely, in those orbs.
Just the reflection? Have they always been there?
An infinite bird colony of closely compacted, jack-knifing
shadows extending far back, to a horizon far inside herself.
One of them grows. Waxes. It seems.
Maybe one of the larger birds outside
enveloping our little chapel with his toga.
For a moment. A priestly bird. A midnight crow.
Or the penguin of her pupils, chucking out its bucket of tar.
A blink. The swashbuckling of eyelashes.
Just a split second. Of total darkness.
Sweet woman. Sitting there, daydreaming.

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